The Tao Te Now - Chapter 5

The Tao Te Now — Chapter 5

Chapter 5 opens with the most uncomfortable claim Lao Tzu has made so far. The Tao does not take sides. It gives birth to both good and evil and does not choose between them. The sage does not organize the world into people who deserve care and people who do not. She welcomes both saints and sinners.

In this episode, Kit Mann works through what that actually means — and what it does not mean. It is not moral relativism. It is not indifference. It is the recognition that waiting for the universe to validate your goodness and punish the wrongdoing of others is its own kind of suffering, and that letting go of that expectation changes something real.

The chapter also introduces a new image for the Tao — the bellows, empty and infinitely capable, producing more the more it is used.

And it ends on nine words that contain the whole of the practice: hold on to the center. Not arrive at it.

Hold on to it. The difference between those two things is the difference between a destination and a practice.